Auchenibert, Killearn

Auchenibert is a substantial two-storey and attic house with a part basement, designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh in 1906 and completed after 1908 by Alexander David Hyslop. The interior was restored by H. Karlin in 1983. The house sits high on a sloping site and is arranged on a stepped plan in an Elizabethan style. It was built for Francis James Shand, the manager of Nobel's Explosives Co. Ltd of Glasgow. Letters from Mackintosh to Shand confirm his authorship, and correspondence from W. S. Moyes, a draughtsman at the practice of Honeyman, Keppie and Mackintosh, states that Mackintosh was the sole designer.

The walls are built of Cotswold stone in irregular snecked rubble with ashlar quoins and dressings. Windows are horizontally aligned and fitted with hoodmoulds, chamfered reveals and stone mullions. The entrance doorcase is Tudor-arched with a heavy hoodmould and undersized label stops. Glazing throughout is multi-pane leaded casement, with twelve-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows to the west elevation. The roof is covered with small grey slates. Ashlar chimney stacks are coped and fitted with some pots. Cast-iron downpipes are paired with decorative rainwater hoppers.

The four elevations each have a distinct character. The south, or entrance, elevation has an advanced gabled bay to the left of centre with steps leading up to a covered porch. The porch has narrow flanking lights and a Tudor-arched entrance with a very deep-set segmental-headed timber door and ironwork gates, with a seven-light window above. Further to the outer left is a taller advanced gable containing a six-light window at ground level and a five-light window above, with a tripartite window in the gable head and a broad shouldered stack on the return to the right. To the right of centre, two small windows flank a monumental chimney stack — almost crowstepped on its right side — with a further small window to the left at first-floor level and a flat-roofed, canted eight-light stair window to the right. The outer right bay has a possibly later single-storey projection with two small windows and a bipartite window on the return to the right, and a deep blocking course leading to a steeply piended roof that adjoins a blank gable with a small gable head stack.

The north, or garden, elevation has a bay to the left of centre that is deeply recessed, with a boarded timber door to the centre, a bipartite window to the left, and a four-light window to the right, all under an advanced flat roof. Above, there are two tripartite windows at first-floor level and a massive chimney stack in the re-entrant angle to the left. Two advanced gable bays flank a small paved terrace: the left gable has a hoodmoulded six-light window at ground level and a five-light window above; the slightly broader right gable is similarly fenestrated but has an additional small light low down to the outer right at first-floor level and a bipartite window in the gable head, with a large stack on the return to the left. To the outer right is a taller and further recessed gable with a raised basement, containing a bipartite window to the left at basement level, a tripartite window above it, a five-light window to the centre at first-floor level and a bipartite window in the gable head.

The east elevation is relatively simple, with two bays: a flat-roofed canted nine-light drawing room window with a tiny window high up at first-floor level to the outer right, and tripartite windows to each floor in the bay to the left.

The west elevation rises from a raised basement to a towering composition. The centre gable has irregular fenestration. To the left is a blank bay with a projecting full-height chimney stack that includes a tiny glazed opening. To the right is a lower gable with steps up to a door fitted with a plate glass fanlight, and a diminutive piended dormer window behind. Low service buildings occupy the re-entrant angle to the left, behind later paired segmentally-arched garage openings set in a screen wall.

Inside, decorative schemes survive in the principal rooms, though not all are original. The hall is panelled with a timbered ceiling and an ingle to the south; the brick lining to the sides of the ingle is probably original. The dining room to the west is panelled and has fluted pilasters flanking a fireplace with a timber mantel shelf and panelled overmantel, and a broad panelled door with Arts and Crafts style door furniture leading to the morning room, which has a broad-beamed fireplace. The drawing room, also referred to as the sitting room, is to the northeast and features panelling installed in 1983 together with a sympathetic modern fire recess in ashlar and what appears to be granite. The book room is panelled with grey plaster and has a roll-moulded, Tudor-arched fireplace in what appears to be an extension; this fireplace surround may have been relocated from elsewhere in the house or introduced after Mackintosh's involvement ended. The staircase is a timber panelled dog-leg design with simple straight balusters and a top rail, and includes a small mezzanine and a fireplace ingle.

The terraced garden retains a stone balustrade and parapet to a small terrace with steps leading down to an altered formal garden.

Mackintosh is believed to have had a disagreement with Shand and left the project in 1908 before it was complete. Two years after the house was finished, Shand engaged Alexander David Hislop (1876–1966) to carry out alterations, including a single-storey extension to the drawing room, as recorded in the Stirling Archives.

In 1998, the owners reinstated a number of features characteristic of Mackintosh's work, including the panelling to the drawing room, which they believed had originally been removed to the cloakroom of the Buchanan Arms at Drymen. Work carried out that year also revealed panelling that had been concealed beneath heavily painted wallpaper, and a beamed chimney breast to the morning room. Earlier research had noted the absence of several Mackintosh features, but a number of these are now apparent. Both Windyhill and The Hill House have dining rooms with dark stained panelling to picture-rail height; this treatment is also present at Auchenibert in both the hall and the drawing room, where it has been carefully reinstated. Mackintosh's characteristic use of grey plaster for fire surrounds can be seen in the book room.

The style of Auchenibert — with its Tudor architectural references — differs markedly from Mackintosh's earlier domestic commissions of Windyhill (1900–1902) in Kilmacolm and The Hill House (1902–1904) in Helensburgh, and is not typical of his work. It is thought that the client's preference for English architectural styles had a strong influence on the design brief.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928) was born in Glasgow and is regarded internationally as one of the leading architects and designers of the 20th century. He is considered a pioneer of Modernism, though his architecture drew heavily on Scottish Baronial and Scottish and English vernacular forms and their reinterpretation. This synthesis of modern and traditional forms produced a distinctive mode of Scottish Arts and Crafts design known as the Glasgow Style, developed in partnership with Herbert McNair and the sisters Frances and Margaret Macdonald, the latter becoming his wife in 1900. Mackintosh is associated with over 150 design projects, ranging from work as principal designer to projects carried out through the practice of John Honeyman and Keppie — from 1901 known as Honeyman, Keppie and Mackintosh. The most significant work of that partnership was the Glasgow School of Art, built in two phases from 1897 and culminating in the outstanding library of 1907. Mackintosh left Glasgow in 1914, established a practice in London the following year, and later moved with Margaret to France, where until his death his artistic output turned largely to textile design and watercolours.

The listing category was raised from B to A in 1999. The listed building record was revised in 2019.